Latest publication: H. P. Lovecraft in GOTHIC STUDIES

Oooh, this one appeared without me realizing -- my latest article, from Gothic Studies: “Just like Henry James (Except with Cannibalism): The International Weird in H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘The Rats in the Walls.’”

As usual, I'd like to post the riveting tale of how this article came to be. It originally developed because of the ENGL 160D Monsters course I teach for the University of Arizona (see my syllabus). When first offered the class, I knew that there'd be Lovecraft in it .... except I didn't really know much about Lovecraft. So I picked "The Rats in the Walls" and his more famous "The Call of Cthulhu" almost at random, and then began a Lovecraft reading binge to educate myself on why Lovecraft was actually a big deal.

My "eureka" moment came after my second semester teaching the course. As one knows, when you teach, you have to break stories down to help your students understand them. Well, when I broke down "The Rats in the Walls," a story with a very complicated chronology, I started noticing that HPL was playing off the transatlantic crossings of the Delapore family as they moved from Old World to New World and back to Old. Eventually I got to wondering, "How anyone else noticed this?" After doing some research, I realized, "No."

So I wrote it up, and sent it off to Gothic Studies. .... and limbo.

After not getting any confirmation receipt after two weeks, I messaged the editor .... she got back to me a few days later with some suggesting to clarify the gothic focus of the piece. Oh, and to cut out the last section to keep the thing under 7,000. (I did that, and that excised section later became a standalone article in Supernatural Studies -- see here. Two lines on the CV for the price of one!) Then I resubmitted ... and didn't hear back for another 11 months, which was extremely frustrating, but not much you can do, you know? Reviewers be slow.**

Anyway, those reviews finally did arrive, I made the suggested (and slight) changes, and then publication took another year or so -- basically, the entire COVID pandemic. And now I'm a published scholar of weird fiction. W00t.

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** And by "slow," I suspect I really mean something like, "They've completely forgotten about the review until after several polite emails from the editor."

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